William Harrison Frist (born February 22, 1952) is an American physician, businessman, conservationist and policymaker who served as a United States Senator from Tennessee from 1995 to 2007.

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Frist studied government and health care policy at Princeton University and earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical School.

[8] Frist graduated in 1970 from Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville, and then from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1974.

[12][13] While in medical school, Frist joined the laboratory of W. John Powell Jr. at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1977, where he continued his training in cardiovascular physiology.

From 1985 until 1986, Frist was a senior fellow and chief resident in cardiac transplant service and cardiothoracic surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

After completing his fellowship, Frist became a faculty member at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he began a heart and lung transplantation program.

Frist won the election, defeating Sasser by 13 points in the 1994 Republican sweep of both houses of Congress, thus becoming the first doctor in the Senate since June 17, 1938, when Royal S. Copeland died.

[31] His book, When Every Moment Counts: What You Need to Know About Bioterrorism from the Senate's Only Doctor, was published following the attacks and provides a question-and-answer format with timely information on responding to biological agents like anthrax.

[33] He became the third-youngest Senate Majority Leader in U.S. history, and had served fewer total years in Congress than any person previously chosen to lead that body.

[37] Motivated to address the AIDS epidemic following his medical mission trips to sub-Saharan Africa, Frist laid the initial groundwork for PEPFAR with legislation he drafted with then-Senator John Kerry (D-MA).

[38] When President Bush made the PEPFAR program a priority of his 2003 agenda, Frist built a bipartisan coalition to secure the legislation's rapid passage.

[41] In December 2006, during Frist's final month as Senate Majority Leader, Congress passed the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), as a part of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act,[42] to strengthen BioShield by creating a dedicated agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services focused on the procurement and development of CBRN medical countermeasures.

[49] The DOJ Office of Legal Counsel subsequently issued an opinion in September 2011, stating that the UIGEA applies only to betting on sporting events and contests and not to other types of online gambling.

He spoke in favor of the recently passed Medicare prescription drug benefit and the passage of legislation providing for health savings accounts.

[citation needed] In an impassioned argument for medical malpractice tort reform, Frist called personal injury trial lawyers "predators": "We must stop them from twisting American medicine into a litigation lottery where they hit the jackpot and every patient ends up paying."

Frist has been an advocate for imposing caps on the amount of money courts can award plaintiffs for noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases.

[57] During the 2004 election season, Frist employed the unprecedented political tactic of going to the home state of the opposition party's minority leader, Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

He campaigned heavily for Republican candidate Bob Corker, who won by a small margin over Congressman Harold Ford Jr. in the general election.

[61][62][63] In 2009, Frist stated that he would have broken with his party by voting in favor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was unanimously opposed by Republicans.

[66] In 2013, Frist partnered with Brad Smith to start Aspire Health, which grew to be the largest non-hospice community-based palliative care company in the U.S.[67] before it was acquired by Anthem in 2018.

[69] Frist also serves as board chair of Monogram Health, a value-based specialty provider of in-home evidence-based care and benefit management services for patients living with polychronic conditions, including chronic kidney and end-stage renal disease.

[70] Based in Nashville, Tennessee, and privately held by Frist Cressey Ventures and other leading strategic and financial investors, Monogram Health provides care for patients across 34 states and all insurance products.

[73] In 2013, Frist voiced support for higher academic standards in grades K-12, reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and improving efforts to identify, foster, and reward effective teaching.

[74][75] In 2010, Frist served on the six-person board of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, which had raised $66 million for immediate earthquake relief and long-term recovery efforts in the Caribbean country.

He currently serves as chairman of the lllGlobal lllBoard of The Nature Conservancy, a three-year term that began in October 2022, and has been a member of the board since June 2015, previously as vice-chair.

According to OneVote.org, "One Vote '08 is an unprecedented, non-partisan campaign to make global health and extreme poverty foreign policy priorities in the 2008 presidential election.

[93] Since 2011, Frist has served as a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and is co-chair of the organization's Health Project with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

[96] In June 1989, Frist published his first book, Transplant: A Heart Surgeon's Account of the Life-And-Death Dramas of the New Medicine, in which he wrote, "A doctor is a man whose job justifies everything ... Life [is] a gift, not an inalienable right.

Senator, and covers several of his medical mission trips in Africa, the process to enact PEPFAR, the 2001 anthrax attacks and SARS, the Medicare Modernization Act, and the 1998 Capitol shooting where he administered care.

"[120] In 2011, he received the Al Ueltschi Award for Humanitarian Leadership in recognition of his life-saving efforts worldwide, and the importance of business aviation to those endeavors.